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Selena Gomez's Texas Popcorn Recipe Has a Surprising Ingredient

Long before Selena + Chef, the Emilia Pérez actress made tasty treats in this throwback interview just ahead of her 18th birthday.

By Christopher Rudolph

Long before Selena + Chef, Selena Gomez was making tasty treats on TV.

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Watch The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on NBC weeknights at 11:35/10:35c and next day on Peacock

In July 2010 —they day before her 18th birthday on July 22 — the Emilia Pérez actress appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and she had the Host try her version of Texas Popcorn. (It wasn't their last culinary adventure together, either: Gomez and Fallon sweated and cried their way through a special Hot Ones session on The Tonight Show in 2019.)

RELATED: Giada De Laurentiis Shows Jimmy Fallon How to Make Her Divisive Chocolate Pasta Dish

Selena Gomez adds a pickle dip to her Texas popcorn

For her Late Night visit, Gomez brought along everything you need to make her addictive snack: a bag of popcorn, salt, Tabasco hot sauce, and one last surprising ingredient: pickle juice. 

Gomez generously poured the hot sauce and salt into the bag of popcorn, shaking it all up. "It depends on if you like it hot," she said of her extra bottle shakes, "and my family does."

As for the pickle juice, she had Jimmy Fallon pour it on a plate, instructing him to dunk one kernel at a time in the pickle juice.

"I haven't eaten one popcorn kernel at a time since I was 18," Fallon joked.

The salty snack might have raised some eyebrows from the audience, but it was a rave review from Fallon, who after dipping some popcorn in the pickle juice remarked, "That's really phenomenal by the way! It's my new favorite popcorn!"

Selena Gomez with Jimmy Fallon eating wings during The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Season 6, Episode 150.

Selena Gomez and her fiancé Benny Blanco both love to cook

Gomez and her fiancé Benny Blanco are both pop stars, but they also love spending time in the kitchen — with Blanco releasing his first cookbook, Open Wide: A Cookbook for Friends, in April 2024.

Known as their are for their kitchen capers, Blanco did admit to People that even they opt to just order in after a long day of work.

"It's so funny. Sometimes when you're cooking all day, you're doing all this stuff, you're just like, 'Should we just get pizza? Or should we just go get tacos?'" Blanco told People. "You're writing all day. You're doing this all day. In your free time, you're just like, 'Oh my God, I'm not doing this s--t.'"

RELATED: Jimmy Fallon Beat Steve Martin, Martin Short, & Selena Gomez at Name That Song

On March 21, Gomez and Blanco will release I Said I Love You First, a collaborative album that's Gomez's first full-length studio project in five years.

“This album came together organically as a direct result of the comfort that they both felt when working together creatively, allowing them to produce art that authentically reflects their experiences,” read the album press release. “It chronicles their entire story — before they met, falling in love and looking to what the future holds.”